That chicken tortelloni with farro and wild mushrooms creation was one of the judges’ top three favorites of the elimination challenge last Thursday, Dec. 28.

During the episode, Sasto said he was thinking about his mom while he worked on fusing his two backgrounds.

Sasto’s mom, Claudette, died of cancer while he was in his freshman year at UC Davis majoring in communications. Losing his mom was devastating, but the 29-year-old executive chef at the Italian restaurant Cal Mare in Beverly Hills found a way to stay connected with her memory through food.

“She’s my whole inspiration for cooking,” Sasto said, speaking by phone. “Growing up, she instilled in me that power of food, and the way that food connects people. And I realize now how much food can evoke memories.”

Big family dinners, Sunday suppers and extravagant holiday feasts were part of life in Sasto’s childhood home in Las Vegas, thanks to his mom.

She learned to cook Italian food before marrying his dad.

“She used to do Christmas cookies every year, the whole nine yards,” he said, adding meatballs and a big pot of Sunday gravy (red sauce) were staples at the table. “The only thing she kept from her French heritage was crepes.”

For the challenge, Sasto took inspiration from his mom’s chicken braised in wine with rice and cabbage.

“I never liked rice as a kid, so this was my spin on that, taking the idea of the chicken braise but then fusing it with my dad’s Italian side of the family,” Sasto said. “I wanted to get away from that whole red sauce thing, and so I didn’t use any tomato product in that dish.

“A lot of that dish had so much more meaning and inspiration from the heritage and the specific things that my mom did and the specific things that my dad did, tying my family into the whole thing,” he said.

Gail Simmons called Sasto’s dish the best example of taking “flavors that are meaningful to you and your heritage and evolving them and adapting them with the skill that you have as a chef.”

“There is so much subtlety in the puree of mushroom that you gave us,” added Judge Padma Lakshmi, “and your sauce work served your dishes well.”

Although the win went to Chris Scott’s lemonade-fried chicken with collard greens, buttermilk brown sugar biscuits, and hot sauce, Sasto was happy with the results.

“It was awesome that the judges appreciated both extremes of it where they saw the amount of technique and skill that went into the food that I did,” he said, “but then the importance of just letting really good heritage food shine like Chris’ dish.

“We ate it at the end, and we were like, ‘Oh, God! Chris won,” he said. “It was that good.”

Los Angeles Daily News reporter Sandra Barrera has been writing about entertainment and lifestyle topics since 1998. Before joining the Daily News in 2000, she was a reporter for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario where she helped launch the now-defunct entertainment magazine 72HOURS as its music writer. Her reporting career at the Daily News has included fashion coverage from the red carpet at Hollywood's biggest awards shows, home and garden trends with a particular focus on earth-friendly alternatives and a wide range of events, from theater to the latest happenings at Six Flags Magic Mountain.